Criminal Landlords in the Shadow PRS: A Report (Part 1)

22 Jan

While the issue of ‘bad landlords’ is something that perennially preoccupies those in the sector, a recent report has brought some new thinking to the issue. It has identified criminal landlords and their tenants as a ‘shadow’ or something of a sub-sector of the wider PRS.

The report includes a look at the types of criminal landlord, why they exist, how they operate and – in a market that is on the face of it already highly regulated – how they get away with it. It provides insight into where enforcement against them is lacking and how it might be improved.

We will look at the report and offer some thoughts of our own here.

Background to the report

The project behind the report is Criminality in the PRS. It ran between April 2023 and December 2025. It was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council.

The project involved cross-institutional research with the University of York, University of Sheffield, Northumbria University, the Safer Renting organisation and a number of advisory board members. It involved academics and researchers from these organisations, including Dr. Julie Rugg (previously known for the ‘Rugg Review’ of the PRS). It included interviewing those involved with the PRS and collating official data and other academic studies.

The project relates to England and uses the Yorkshire and the Humber area as the basis for its study. This comprises 15 local authorities which the report says ‘varied in their degree of proactivity in terms of housing enforcement’. It points out that Yorkshire and the Humber had the highest crime rate of all English regions in 2023-24.

The report involved several work packages which looked at landlord behaviour, tenant experience and enforcement activity. Their research was made up into four reports of which this is the first.

Some key findings from the report

The PRS – complex and criminogenic

The report begins from the point of view that the legal system has been trying to get to grips with criminality in the PRS for at least 25 years now. (Although we would suggest it has been much longer.)

The authors suggest that perhaps the main issue behind tackling criminality is the complexity of the sector. And not only that but of the complexity of legislation and enforcement itself. They say it involves at least five government departments, numerous local authorities and many other agencies such as the police and trading standards. They suggest that coordinating the efforts of these agencies and ‘siloing’ of responsibilities is very much an issue.

A particularly interesting claim made is that the PRS is inherently criminogenic. That is, it affords an opportunity to commit crime: It creates a space where criminal activity is easy to undertake, easy to get away with and in some ways encouraged. It suggests that, subsequently, a ‘shadow PRS’ has developed. In other words, one where landlords actively break the law and tenants accept the situation.

The report claims that the shadow market hides in plain sight alongside the legitimate market. This makes it more difficult to detect and to take enforcement action.

The different types of criminal landlord

What a criminal landlord actually is (with terms such as rogue landlord etc. also being in use) is part of the problem, according to the authors. The report tries to define a criminal landlord by saying they are someone who has no regard for tenant welfare, who shows a willingness to break the law routinely and who uses tactics to frustrate detection or prosecution.

Within that, however, there are several types of criminal landlord – although some operate across these categories:

Slum landlords: Landlords who spend as little on their property as possible, are willing to keep it in a poor condition, yet look to maximise the rental income. (The report says these landlords sometimes think of themselves as being clever entrepreneurs.)

Scam landlords: This include landlords who use rent to rent schemes as a way to evade their responsibilities to tenants. (In some cases the superior landlord may be a bona fide landlord.)

Scam letting agents: This might include agents who charge illegal fees, who exploit genuine landlords, as well as landlords who pose as letting agents to try to evade their responsibilities.

Organised crime groups or OCGs: Including those who deliberately use the PRS hand in hand with other criminal activities such as cannabis farming, prostitution or people trafficking.

On a more optimistic note, it is acknowledged that not all landlords who break the rules are committed criminals per se. It accepts that some are just occasional rule-breakers – who drift between compliance and non-compliance – or those who genuinely believe they are doing nothing wrong. It says that this sometimes simply reflects unprofessionalism, inexperience, lack of awareness of the law, poor advice or a lack of financial resources to maintain their properties. It makes a very interesting point, however, that these types of landlord make it harder for enforcement authorities to detect the more serious criminals and take enforcement action.

Why landlords break the law

The report goes on to try and understand the reasons why criminality occurs in the PRS.

Firstly, it refers again to the sheer complexity of the rental market. For example, there are many different types of landlord and types of letting arrangement. It points towards the casual and amateur nature of some of the PRS. This not only facilitates criminal activity but encourages and even masks it.

It says illegal activity often happens because there is such high demand for rented accommodation, and particularly budget accommodation. So to some extent it is tolerated and even accepted.

One point the authors stress is how important the shadow PRS is to its tenants. It serves tenants who are excluded from the regular PRS. Because, for example, of a lack of references, lack of a regular income or inability to commit to a formal letting arrangement.

The report says there is patchy enforcement within authorities, and even what it calls ‘enforcement deserts’ across authorities. It refers to a ‘siloed policing’ problem. It says there are multiple obstacles to prosecution, and that penalties and fines are often inadequate. It says that tenants have limited access to legal support.

The problem of ‘innovation and regulation gaps’ is highlighted. For example, exempt accommodation and rent to rent arrangements lack adequate regulation.

The report also introduces an interesting concept, which it calls ‘techniques of neutralisation’. These are ways that criminal landlords rationalise and justify their activity. It says that these techniques include passing the blame to other parties, denying that any harm has been done and blaming the victim, ie. the tenant. It suggests that some landlords take the moral high ground, ie. that they are doing such a socially important job this takes priority over rules and regulations.

It is suggested local authorities should share some blame for this due to ‘soft enforcement’ in some cases. They suggest this is because authorities know the law can be hard to comply with and perhaps because (in our words not theirs) they accept that poor quality housing is better than no housing.

Possible solutions

So what about some ways to tackle criminality in the PRS? The report makes some recommendations as follows:

Primary prevention: The authors suggest tackling the criminogenic environment in the PRS by controlling access to it using landlord and letting agent registration. They suggest reducing tenant exclusion from the mainstream market by increasing Local Housing Allowance (LHA) as well as providing charitable funding. Improving landlord information and training and promoting letting as a professional business, not a hands off investment, could also be beneficial.

Secondary prevention: It is suggested that there should be more ‘soft surveillance’ of the sector, tighter regulation of intermediaries and earlier intervention when issues arise.

Tertiary intervention: Action needs to be taken to ‘contain the harm of criminal landlordism’. This could be done by making more use of tools such as landlord banning orders and property management orders. The report suggests empowering tenants to make more use of Rent Repayment Orders alongside increased victim protection.

Some thoughts

Firstly, while any study that tries to improve the operation of the PRS must be welcomed we should perhaps mention a couple of small issues with it.

There is little in the way of statistics in the report. Of course, that may be because few were available. Also, some of the survey samples used were quite small. It takes in interviews from just 16 non compliant landlords for example. It’s also important to stress that the study centred around the Yorkshire and the Humber region. These factors make it quite difficult to fully understand the size and scale of the shadow PRS. We do wonder if the situation is similar in the rest of the country – and particularly in the London boroughs which have vast private rented sectors.

It is also probably fair to say that the contents of this report will not come as much of a surprise to those of us in housing enforcement. We are used to dealing with many of the issues that are raised on a regular basis.

That doesn’t detract from the usefulness of this work however. The report presents some high level thinking and interesting insights in a way that certainly provides food for thought. It will contribute towards understanding the problems of criminality in the PRS a bit better.

The Renters’ Rights Act

The report doesn’t make a great deal of reference to the Renters’ Rights Act which begins to come into force on 1 May this year. This is perfectly understandable as this study was well underway before the new Act was even announced. Like many of us, the authors couldn’t have anticipated it would come into effect so soon.

The new Act might serve to tackle a few of the issues that this report draws attention to. For example, it has already introduced new enforcement powers for local authorities. It will at some point require landlords to be registered with the PRS Database and so identify themselves. It will strengthen tenants’ rights and give them a PRS Landlord Ombudsman to complain to while reducing the fear of eviction.

It could be suggested, however, that Renters’ Rights will exacerbate the issue of criminality in the PRS not moderate it. If it encourages good landlords to leave the market, worsens the accommodation shortage and pushes up rents, it could make things more attractive and rewarding for criminal landlords. It could actually serve to expand the shadow PRS. And, as this report points out, reforming tenancy law doesn’t benefit tenants who don’t have a tenancy and aren’t in a position to demand one.

Renters’ Rights will introduce more layers of complexity into what is already a very complex arena. It will make compliance and enforcement more demanding for all. By introducing new offences it could put more landlords who try to be compliant on the wrong side of the law. As the report itself suggests, the lettings market is a complex animal indeed and this is part of the problem. And whatever else it might do, Renters’ Rights isn’t going to make things simpler.